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About Janet Mclean

I am a children's writer, and a teacher of preschool children.
With my husband, renowned illustrator, Andrew McLean, I have published 15 picture books. Our first book, The Riverboat Crew, was published in 1978. Some of books have received awards and appear on Notable book lists.
When I was teaching I received a Highly Commended Award for Excellence by a Teacher for my unique story-based approach to learning in the preschool years.
I am sharing this appraoch on this blog, with stories by and about children and families.

Today Packing for the Journey features two stories from Dr Virginia Lowe. These wonderful anecdotes show how shared book reading enriches children’s knowledge and their ever-expanding understanding of life.

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‘I’ll tell you a story Mum’: Two children tellby Virginia Lowe

I kept a record of my two children’s contact with books and their responses. Rebecca is almost three years and three months older than her brother. The children’s own stories arose naturally from contact with books. These two stories demonstrate how the children use this literary material – in this case at least, one shows her scientific bent, the other works on relationships.1. Nick the whale. One morning, Rebecca and I had a row before school – the reason for it is not recorded, but Nick disliked us arguing and was tense about it. Later he was helping me hang out the washing, as usual handing me pegs. (He was 3y1m old.) This time he was picking them up in his mouth because he was being alternately a shark and a whale.

N: I’m picking them up in my mouth cos I can’t use my flippers. I’m a friendly whale.

V: You’re clever to do that Mr Whale.

N: Yes, I can do that ‘acouse I’m an excellent whale who can do everything that is magic.

He talked a bit about his mother who had gone shopping underwater. Then,

N: I’m having an argument with my mother [imaginary whale one that is].

V: Oh yes. Do whales like arguments? [Expecting him to say that like him, they didn’t. It’s obviously different for whales]

N: Yes. Argumenting [sic] is good for whales.

He carried the monologue on over lunch. His [whale] mother was sitting beside him.

N: I’m sharing my food with my mother. She said to put the plate in the middle.

V: What am I?

N: You’re people

He carried through fairly logically, as a completely anthropomorphised whale.

N: Do you know how we get out of the water? We use our flippers on the steps.

N: Do you know how we wash our clothes?

V: No.

N: In a washing machine! [etc etc].

Whale’s Way Written by Johanna Johnston, Illustrated by Leonard Weisgard. Originally published in 1962

Anyway, at rest time, I fetchedWhale’s Way (Johnston) to read to him. He at once identified himself with the largest whale on the endpapers and first few pages.

On several pages he commented on the more distant whale as ‘that’s me looking small’ presumably to make sure that we both understood it was only through perspective that he looked smaller.

N: I have those flukes. I swim and splash with my flukes (etc. mainly echoing the book’s text).

But the book is fairly long and very complicated, and he was restless before the end of most pages.

N: I’m tired of this whale book

So we stopped and he cuddled down to sleep with it clutched in his arms.

When he woke from his nap, his grandparents were visiting. I asked him if he was still a whale, he grinned and said ‘yes’ and told them with excitement –

N: We’ve got a book about whales!

* * * * * * * *

2. A story-game from Rebecca. She was 4y 4m, and we were exploring Italy in a campervan.

The Fairy Tale Collection selected by Virginia Haviland, illustrated by Raymond Briggs, first published 1972 by Hamish Hamilton

A day of turnips inspired by ‘The Turnip’ (Tolstoy) which is in two of the collections of stories we had with us, Bamberger My First Big Story Book and Haviland The Fairy Tale Treasury.

First, in a park, by a delightful pond (Florence) – Rebecca pointed to a large clump of grass.

R: That’s a great big turnip, Mum! There must have been a show here to grow such a big turnip (presumably she meant the biggest vegetables would be grown for and sent to agricultural shows).

That evening, while tea was preparing, she played ‘turnips’ outside in the campsite for half an hour or so. She was pulling up clumps of grass. This is just a few jotted phrases of an interminable conversation.

R: Look at this great big turnip, Mum! It’s so heavy, and it was hard to pull up. We’ll have turnip for supper.

R: If I find more than four turnips I’ll invite some friends to tea (a partial quote from Potter’s The Tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher).

R: Look at them on the scales. See how heavy the big one is? (One in each hand, arms straight, bigger one low, smaller high)

Later:R: Now I’ve got two little turnips and one big one. Nick will have a little one, and I will have a little one, and you and Daddy shall share the great big one.

R: Three of them are boiled now. I can’t wait to eat them.

R: I’ve planted some more of that brand of turnip. They’ll be ready in the morning. They’re the sort that grow overnight. I hope they’re as nice as the ones we’ve just eaten.

As might be expected, this one is now a scientist (a permaculture one) and the other a teacher, coping with relationships all the time.

* * * * * * * *

Dr Virginia Lowe has been a Judge for the Children’s Book Council’sBook of the Year Award and Convenor for the CBCA Crichton Award for new illustrators. She is now an honorary life member of the CBCA (Vic) and recipient of the Leila St John medal from them for services to children’s literature in Victoria. She has taught children’s literature, English and creative writing at university. She is a published poet (her latest, with her husband John, is published by the Melbourne Poets Union, Lines Between), and has also written extensively on children and books with some forty academic articles and a regular column ‘Two Children Tell’ in Books for Keeps http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/. Virginia’s book Stories, Pictures and Reality: Two Children Tell was published by Routledge (London, 2006).

Like this:

Ngarra Murray is a Wamba Wamba (Gourmjanyuk), Yorta Yorta (Wallitihica) and Dja Dja Wurrung (Yung Balug) women based in Melbourne. She is a National Naidoc committee member.@ngarrakatye

From The Guardian, Thu 5 Jul 2018 16.19 AEST

Aboriginal women are fighting for equal rights

“For at least 65,000 years and over 3,000 generations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanderwomen have carried the dreaming stories, songlines, languages and knowledge that have kept our culture and identity strong.

Our women were there at first contact and have stood firm – from the early days of the Aboriginal resistance. They went through a torrid cultural transition being subjected to the social, cultural, linguistic, and environmental destruction of our peoples.

They stood beside our men at the Torres Strait pearler’s strike, the Cummeragunja walk-off, the Pilbara pastoral workers strike, the freedom rides, the Wave Hill walk-off and in the frontline of the Aboriginal tent embassy.

They marched with our men in Sydney on 26 January 1938 at what would be Australia’s first civil rights protest – the day of mourning – a protest, a movement that would ultimately become our national Naidoc week.

Sharing Aboriginal Voices is the place on Packing for the Journey for me to share stories of our country’s past and current history from an Aboriginal points of view.

Between 2009 and 2015 I worked at Bubup Wilam for Early Learning Aboriginal Child and Family Centre, a self-determining Aboriginal Community, in the outer northern Melbourne suburb of Thomastown.

During that time, as a non-Aboriginal early childhood educator, my beliefs, and ways of being, my knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal history and culture, my educational philosophy and ways of teaching, were challenged. Since then I have never stopped rethinking, revisiting, and searching for ways, as a non-Aboriginal woman, to hear Aboriginal stories and to walk in step with Aboriginal people.

Following the recent announcement by the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, that the Federal government had Allocated $50 million of taxpayer money on a new monument celebrating Captain Cook’s arrival in Australia, I wrote this response.

“Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said that such incidents (throwing paint on statues of CC) are part of “a deeply disturbing and totalitarian campaign to not just challenge our history but to deny it and obliterate it”. Is he serious?

Spending $50 million on a ‘Captain Cook Memorial is a “deeply disturbing and totalitarian campaign” in the hands of the incumbent government which is setting, and has set the history agenda for over 230 years.

That $50m would go a long way towards ‘memorials’ to teach all Australians the history of our land in the years prior to, and since 1788. This history is being written, painted, danced and sung, by Aboriginal people, who are still living with the effects of colonisation – telling how First Nations people lived here for 60,000 years, and have survived the consequences of invasion, destruction of the environment, massacres, and the terrible effect on whole families and clans, of the stolen generations.

This government is setting its agenda for a culture war. That agenda must be challenged

Working Title Press was established in 1997 by Jane Covernton and Sue Williams with a view to showcasing the work of new and established writers and illustrators and to introduce children to the power of story. Formerly of Omnibus Books, Covernton and Williams specialised in quality picture books for children between the ages of 0-12 and curated a list that became one of Australia’s most awarded independent children’s publishers. As a showcase of Australian talent and content, a core part of the Working Title Press list is its Indigenous subject matter, which includes traditional Dreaming Narratives featuring the artwork of Indigenous children from central and north-west Australia, and several award-winning non-fiction titles.

Working Title Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Australia

In July 2017, Working Title Press was acquired by HarperCollins Publishers, Australia, joining its other acclaimed Australian children’s imprints, Angus & Robertson and ABC Books.

Like this:

Encounter They met at the back door He was going out She was coming in Bemused, enchanted They stood face to face Eye to eye She was charmed by His long fluttering eyelashes Then she took a peck We rushed to sweep him up Before she reached his eye Only eight months old Though already […]

Now I am ready. I have pulled out some weeds, raked over some dirt, and planted in some herbs.

In 2009 I started working at Bubup Wilam when it was a one room kindergarten in Nebel Street, Lalor.

I had left teaching ten years before and didn’t expect to go back to it.

I had loved being a teacher and I missed the day-to-day emotional and intellectual buzz that I got from being with babies to six year old children.

I jumped at the chance, just as I was turning 64, to return to it.

Our Place – Bubup Wilam, Nebel Street, Lalor. 2010

When I started teaching at Bubup Wilam, I believed my educational philosophy and way of teaching would fit well with Bubup Wilam’s vision and aims.

Now I know how much I still had to learn about teaching, about people, and about being a non-Aboriginal person working in an Aboriginal community.

What challenged me the most was the realisation that I still had a lot to learn about myself.

It was a steep learning curve, often uncomfortable, sometimes distressing.

Every day we were confronted with the effects of on-going generational trauma suffered by Aboriginal people as a result of colonisation, dispossession of land and culture, and the forced removal of children from families – the Stolen Generations.

Our Place = Bubup Wilam, Main Street, Thomastown, 2010

THANK YOU…

… all of you, my colleagues who have become my friends, and from whom I have learned so much.

Here I want to single out a few, and what I say to them, applies to you all

Trish, Dianne, Jedda, Lisa – the strong Gunditjamara, Gunnai/Kurnai, Mutthi Mutthi, Yorta Yorta women – that I met when I first started at Bubup Wilam in 2009, at Nebel Street

You welcomed me into the Bubup Wilam family.

You have been my teachers.

You have openly and honestly shared your life stories with me.

You have helped me begin building my own understanding of what it means to be Aboriginal, and living in Australia today, with a sidelined 60,000 year heritage and culture.

And to realise what it means to me to be non-Aboriginal in the same country.

You have been my role models, and helped me to broaden my own understanding of true social justice.

You have introduced me to Aboriginal ways of thinking and living, and to Aboriginal English, and to your unique style of humour.

You are rebuilding the parts of your lives that have been broken through the effects of historical events.

You are healing yourselves, studying, reconnecting with long-lost family, and raising and creating a new generation of proud and deadly kids, with strong connections to Community, Country and Culture.

Like this:

Bubup Wilam

Bubup Wilam is a self-determining Aboriginal Child and Family Centre managed by Aboriginal people for Aboriginal children, families, and Community. It provides access to an integrated range of services and programs, including: early intervention and prevention programs, early years education, and health and wellbeing services.

I began teaching at Bubup Wilam in 2009 when it was a stand-alone kindergarten in Lalor, one suburb north of Thomastown.In 2012, the Centre opened at its current site in Thomastown, and between January 2012 and March 2015 I worked there as the Pedagogical Leader.

Bubup Wilam – Purpose

In partnership with families
to nurturestrong proud and deadly kids
in a culturally rich and supportive
educational environment.

Bubup Wilam means ‘Children’s Place’ in Woi Wurrung language. The Centre is situated on the Wurundjeri land of the Kulin Nation, in Thomastown, in Melbourne’s north. It has become a Meeting Place for Aboriginal people who have settled in Melbourne from different parts of Australia.

Families from many mobs/clans come together at Bubup Wilam

Bubup Wilam – Vision

Children who are proud
and havea strong Aboriginal identity
as their foundation for
lifelong learning, health and wellbeing.

Bubup Wilam – Philosophy

‘Community Control is defined as the Aboriginal local Community having control of issues that directly affect their community, meaning that Aboriginal people must determine and control the pace, shape and manner of change and decision making at all levels. This reflects the right of Aboriginal people to self-determination in a meaningful and effective way.’ National Aboriginal Health Strategy (1989)

Bubup Wilam meaning Children’s Place in the Woi Wurrung language seeks to underpin and strengthen (our) vision through the service’s philosophy of

This equates to children, with the support of their parents and extended family,

Taking a lead responsibility inowning and developingtheir learning,playspace,interactions, andengagement with others
in a confident and supported way.

I was a non-Aboriginal professional educator working within a self-determining Aboriginal Community. Every day for the five years that I worked there, my beliefs, and ways of being, my knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal history and culture, my educational philosophy and ways of teaching, were challenged. I have never stopped learning, rethinking, revisiting, and searching for ways, as a non-Aboriginal woman, to walk in step with the Aboriginal Community.

Following the announcement by the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, that the Federal government had Allocated $50 million of taxpayer money on a new monument celebrating Captain Cook’s arrival in Australia, I wrote this response.

“Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said that such incidents (throwing paint on statues of CC) are part of “a deeply disturbing and totalitarian campaign to not just challenge our history but to deny it and obliterate it”. Is he serious?

Spending $50 million on a ‘Captain Cook Memorial is a “deeply disturbing and totalitarian campaign” in the hands of the incumbent government which is setting, and has set the history agenda for over 230 years.

That $50m would go a long way towards ‘memorials’ to teach all Australians the history of our land in the years prior to, and since 1788. This history is being written, painted, danced and sung, by Aboriginal people, who are still living with the effects of colonisation – telling how First Nations people lived here for 60,000 years, and have survived the consequences of invasion, destruction of the environment, massacres, and the terrible effect on whole families and clans, of the stolen generations.

This government is setting its agenda for a culture war. That agenda must be challenged

Sharing Aboriginal Voices is the place on Packing for the Journey for me to share stories of our past and current history from an Aboriginal perspective.

Let’s Go baby-o! – The Setting

This story started as a moment in time, and grew into a book.

Let’s Go Baby-o! Janet and Andrew McLean,2011, Allen and Unwin– a book sharing

The seed

One day in 2008, our newly-born grandson, Rory, lay on the floor in the back room of our house surrounded by the people and animals he would be growing up with. There was his mum and dad, his auntie, two dogs – Rupert and Bella, a cat – Norah, and his Janna and Pa (that’s us, Janet and Andrew). Outside a pair of blackbirds was building a nest in the ornamental grapevine that stretches across the back verandah. Three years later, in 2011, Let’s Go Baby-o! was published. Now it’s 2018 and Rory has just turned ten. He is one of The Brothers whose stories are told elsewhere on Packing for the Journey!

Our place

Our own place was the perfect setting for this book. Baby-o and Cuz could be inside the house playing together, and every now and then stop to look out the window and watch what was happening in the garden.

The garden

Our garden has led us down may different paths since we first moved here thirty-two years ago. The patch of concrete that was big enough for a usable handball court is long gone, paved over with bricks salvaged from elsewhere in the garden. The bamboo forest along the south side fence that took so long to remove has been replaced with wild salvias, a cherry tree, a lemon and a lime. The crabapple tree that appears in Let’s Go Baby-o! has been replaced by a weeping cherry that, so far, seems to be holding its own.

The ever-changing garden

While the garden is too small to call rambling, it has become an intriguing place for children, grown-ups, dogs, cats, birds, possums, spiders and insects, and slugs, snails and skinks. Children follow paths and climb, cats stalk, dogs chase, mosquitoes bite, spiderwebs trap, and birds fill up on ripe fruit and scrabble for worms – and all of them find secret places to hide.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Everyday life in the backyard

For thirty years the garden has also been a bone orchard for two cats, Dinah and Norah, and four dogs, Maggie, Kipper, Rupert and Bella. Every one of these animals has made their way into our books (There’ll be more about Dinah, Maggie and Kipper, and the books they turned up in, in a later post). Norah, Rupert and Bella are characters in Let’s Go Baby–o!

Our Skye-boy terriers, Callan and Danny, are still waiting to be in a book.

On the day Bella was buried Callan, for a few moments settled himself over her grave

Where the birds nest.

Nesting just outside the window

One of the preferred spots for the birds to nest is in the ornamental grapevine that stretches across the back verandah. The brown female and and the black male fly from tree to vine, from creeper to bush, sussing out the best place to build their nest. Once they have chosen the right spot the brown one scavenges in the garden for leaves and grasses, and the odd bit of plastic. She binds these together with mud to make a scrappy, cup-shaped nest, and lines it with soft grasses and tufts of dog hair from whichever of our dogs is around at the time.

The vine where the blackbirds nested again this summer

This year we found a nest just three feet off the ground in the Rosa Perle D’or. It was filled with half-eaten, dried out quinces. I like to think of the brown, the black, and the fledgelings filling up on these before taking off.

A nest of quinces

From inside the house

The windows and doors in the back room of our house overlooks the backyard – perfect for seeing what’s happening out there.